


god save the children

by ThatHydrokinetic



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: #Dickwally week 2019, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Birdflash - Freeform, Birdflash Week 2019, Gen, M/M, dickwally week 2019, i'm not sure how we're formatting this, no editing we die like men, rated teen bc i think i say fuck, we play fast and loose with things like canon and timelines here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatHydrokinetic/pseuds/ThatHydrokinetic
Summary: Kid Flash and Robin were just trying to make sure everyone got out. They weren't really sure what to do with the baby on their hands.





	god save the children

“You hold him,” Robin said, shoving the bundle at Kid Flash, who wrinkled his nose even as he barely managed not to drop it.

“What! Why?”

Kid Flash’s confused protests were far too loud for the corridor they were crouching in, and Robin resisted the urge to argue back only by way of years of training in when you need to be  _ quiet, _ chief among those being when you were smack dab in the middle of the base you were currently trying to escape from.

“How do you know it’s a him, anyway?”

“Batsense,” Robin answered. It was a half-assed attempt at a joke, and he was too distracted to pull it off, anyway, what with the amount of attention he was currently giving the map in front of him, but Wally still turned to squint at him, trying to decode whether or not Robin was fucking with him.

And Robin was, but he didn’t really have time to resolve it when they were  _ escaping from a human trafficking ring. _

“This way,” he said, and was glad when Wally didn’t waste time protesting. He fell in step silently behind Robin, apparently finally realizing that levity wasn’t what they needed right now, and alternated between keeping an eye on their backs and cooing quietly at the baby in his arms.

Robin spared only a second of thought for the kid they’d pulled from that lab. Artemis, the only other one who’d been lying around the Cave with them when they got the notification, should be finished getting the rest of the kids out by now, but Wally’d pushed for one last sweep of the place, and Robin couldn’t justify disagreeing, aside from the pit of unease that was still growing every second, because he was sure babies weren’t meant to be  _ that _ silent.

He was shoving Wally into the open door behind him before he’d even really registered the scuff of footsteps down the hall, before he’d even decided whether he thought they were headed this way. Wally protested the rough treatment with a quiet  _ oof _ but he knew what it meant when Robin got like this, after so long working ops together whenever they could. At least he didn’t vanish alone anymore; Wally could take getting shoved into a few supply closets as a trade-off.

“Is it your turn with the kid yet?” Wally whispered, trying to distract from the heat of their close bodies, and laughed to himself as Robin flashed the kid a look of open distrust.

“No,” he whispered back. “Not unless your sense of direction has gotten any better.”

It was really rude of Robin to bring up Wally’s botched attempt of driving them around Central  _ now, _ in the middle of a  _ job, _ when he couldn’t well defend himself.

He settled for a muttered “I’d like to see you do better” and refocused his attention to the baby in his arms. Robin noticed him doing so, because of course he did, and Wally wondered if the unnatural silence of the kid was grating on the edge of his nerves as well. Wally wasn’t really sure how old he was, but young enough that he could be wrapped in blankets and held tight to one’s chest without tiring you  _ too much, _ but that might just be the probable malnourishment.

He was definitely breathing, at least. That was something. As long as he was alive, that meant it was nothing he couldn’t bounce back from.

“Do you think they’re gone?” Wally asked, and Robin froze, holding himself tight in a way that told Wally he was trying to listen.

“I think so,” he answered, and the two of them snuck through the tight opening of the supply room door, silent as they followed Robin’s map out of the base. The hallways were oddly circuitous for what they’d expected to be a new operation, and the setup of the floors was downright  _ weird. _

Every once in a while, he’d take a second to bounce the kid a little, check again for signs that he was still breathing, still steady. He knew full well he was mimicking actions he’d only seen his mother do to some of the kids she watched at church, and had literally no idea at all what he was doing, but considering Robin would have all of  _ Batman _ as an example in this situation, he figured it was better than the alternative.

Not that he wasn’t still going to bitch about it.

“Are we almost there?” he asked, and couldn’t quite dodge the elbow Robin sent back towards his abdomen. 

“Hey, watch the  _ baby,” _ he said, which of course, just happened to coincide when Artemis tuned into their comm frequency.

“Do I even want to know what that was about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Robin responded, leading them past a few more turns. “It’s just KF being KF. Did you get everyone out?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But police are starting to show up, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to handle the crowd that’ll follow. Where the hell are you two?”

“We’re almost out. We got a little. . .” Robin trailed off looking at the kid in Wally’s arms. “Sidetracked.”

“Oh my god,” Artemis said. “If that’s code for ‘we made out in a closet for ten minutes while Artemis had to deal with a dozen crying kids,’ I will murder you both.”

They were both simultaneously glad their movement and direction hid both their respective faces, because neither of them could handle their blushes.

It was, however, Robin who got his voice back underneath him first. “No, we uh—we found a kid. In the base. A baby.”

A pause. “A baby. Like an infant baby?”

“How should I know?” Robin asked, and they were close, now, to the exit; they could hear the police sirens. “I think he might be sedated with something, though. Give any meds a heads up.”

And they could hear Artemis yelling, too. They burst through the door at the same time as two people looked as though they were going to meet them inside. They wasted no time taking the bundle from Wally’s arms, although someone else did ask them, voice muted, if they had any identification for the kid.

Robin nearly blanched, because  _ no, they didn’t. _ They had zero idea who the kid’s parents were; they’d been so focused on getting him out that neither of them had thought to consider that he was  _ definitely _ too young to tell strangers his parents’ names.

But it wasn’t their problem anymore. Heroes dealt with the crisis; public services dealt with the fall out. The two of them could only find Artemis, hair a tangled mess (from grabby toddler hands, if her sharp glare was anything to go by) and make their way back to the zeta tube as quickly and covertly as they could.

“Well, that was fun,” Wally said, once they were far enough away from the scene to feel comfortable chatting, but still on their way to the zeta.

“For you, maybe,” Artemis said, eyeing them both with something close to suspicion, something Wally didn’t seem to pick up on but that made Robin’s cheeks flame.

“I finally found something Robin’s useless at: childcare.” 

Wally, again, couldn’t dodge Robin, but he only laughed as Robin launched himself onto Wally’s back, a move meant to send them both sprawling onto the street but that ended only in Robin getting a piggy-back ride for the rest of the walk.

And if Artemis sent a snap of the pair to Zatanna, caption reading only “Pls save me,” (and receiving nothing but a line of eyes emojis in response) then, well.

That’s just how it was these days.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways this is uh highkey unedited so feel free to shoot me a message if you see any typos


End file.
